The meeting, which saw Pablo de Olavide University commit to the Healthy Campus Programme, was attended by FISU Acting President Leonz Eder, FISU general secretary and chief executive Eric Saintrond and FISU Healthy Campus Programme director Fernando Parente. 

The Rector of Olavide University, Francisco Oliva Blázquez, and the vice-rector for Healthy Campus and Sport, Antonio Fernandez Martinez, represented the Spanish university.

Launched in May 2020 following the breakout of COVID-19, the Healthy Campus Programme, it is claimed, helps universities "develop and improve health and well-being for all campus communities".

The Programme also includes sharing best practices across seven key areas - sports and physical activity, mental health, nutrition, disease prevention, risk behaviour, environment, and social responsibility and sustainability.

Fernandez Martinez will be in charge of the local strategic and operational development of the initiative at the Seville-based university, and he believes joining the scheme - which now has 86 universities from 33 countries in all five continents - will help make campus life for all healthy and positive.

Rector Oliva Blázquez said: "The University of Pablo de Olavide wants to be in the leadership in the area of well-being in Spain, having even created an area and appointed a vice-rector in charge with exactly that designation."

FISU President Eder said: "In the space of a year and a half, we were able to reach universities from all around the globe and from many different cultures to help develop a healthy campus environment. 

"Now that FISU Healthy Campus is becoming a benchmark for the quality of life in university campuses, we hope to attract an ever-increasing number of universities into the programme that will benefit students worldwide."